The 12 Days of Christmas

December 14, 1972

My dearest darling John:

Who ever in the whole world would dream of getting a real Partridge in a Pear Tree? How can I ever express my pleasure. Thank you a hundred times for thinking of me this way.

My love always, Agnes

---

December 15, 1972

Dearest John:

Today the postman brought your very sweet gift. Just imagine two turtle doves. I'm just delighted at your very thoughtful gift. They are just adorable.

All my love, Agnes

---

December 16, 1972

Dear John:

Oh! Aren't you the extravagant one. Now I must protest. I don't deserve such generosity, three French hens. They are just darling but I must insist, you've been too kind.

All my love, Agnes

---

December 17, 1972

Dear John:

Today the postman delivered four calling birds. Now really, they are beautiful, but don't you think enough is enough. You are being too romantic.

Affectionately, Agnes

---

December 18, 1972

Dearest John:

What a surprise. Today the postman delivered five golden rings, one for every finger. You're just impossible, but I love it. Frankly, all those birds squawking were beginning to get on my nerves.

All my love, Agnes

---

December 19, 1972

Dear John:

When I opened the door today there were actually six geese laying on my front steps. So you're back to the birds again huh? These geese are huge. Where will I ever keep them? The neighbors are complaining and I can't sleep through the racket. Please stop.

Cordially, Agnes

---

December 20, 1972

John:

What's with you and those freaking birds?? Seven swans a swimming. What kind of damn joke is this? There's bird poop all over the house and they never stop the racket. I can't sleep at night and I'm a nervous wreck. It's not funny. So stop those freaking birds.

Sincerely, Agnes

---

December 21, 1972

O.K. Buster:

I think I prefer the birds. What the hell am I going to do with 8 maids a milking? It's not enough with all those birds and 8 maids a milking, but they had to bring their damn cows. There is manure all over the lawn and I can't move in my own house. Just lay off me, smartass.

Agnes

---

December 22, 1972

Hey Shithead:

What are you? Some kind of sadist? Now there's nine pipers playing. And Christ do they play. They've never stopped chasing those maids since they got here yesterday morning. The cows are getting upset and they're stepping all over those screeching birds. What am I going to do? The neighbors have started a petition to evict me.

You'll get yours! Agnes

---

December 23, 1972

You rotten prick:

Now there's ten ladies dancing. I don't know why I call those sluts ladies. They've been balling those pipers all night long. Now the cows can't sleep and they've got diarrhea. My living room is a river of shit. The Commissioner of Buildings has subpoenaed me to give cause why the building shouldn't be condemned.

I'm calling the police on you! Agnes

---

December 24, 1972

Listen Fuckhead:

What's with those eleven lords a leaping on those maids and ladies? Some of those broads will never walk again. Those pipers ran through the maids and have been committing sodomy with the cows. All twenty-three of the birds are dead. They've been trampled to death in the orgy. I hope you're satisfied, you rotten vicious swine.

Your sworn enemy, Agnes

---

December 25, 1972

Dear Sir:

This is to acknowledge your latest gift of twelve fiddlers fiddling which you have seen fit to inflict on our client, Miss Agnes McHolstein. The destruction, of course, was total. All correspondence should come to our attention. If you should attempt to reach Miss McHolstein at Happy Dale Sanitarium, the attendants have been instructed to shoot you on sight. With this letter please find attached a warrant for your arrest.

Cordially, Law Offices of Badger, Bender and Chole

Oh Tannenbaum

The wind howled and the snow was falling sideways more than it was falling down. The mercury hadn't quite climbed above 20 degrees, but there we were, out in the middle of a chunk of land surrounded by Christmas Trees. Several years ago we had sort of just fallen into what is rapidly becoming a tradition of visiting the Rees' Pine-Apple farm to gather our Christmas tree. I'm the only one in the family left who still gets a live tree every year. Despite my older brother's proclamations that he would never, in a million years, get some stupid plastic fake tree. But that was before they bought the fake tree. Although, in his defense, his youngest is allergic to about 98% of the things most people take too much for granted. If they wanted a Christmas tree, they had two options; go plastic, or get rid of the kid. I think they had more invested in the kid and really didn't want to see that investment go to waste. I feel for the guy, no real tree.

It was cold though, very cold. The kind of cold that makes you think mother nature has it in for you. Like she is doing her very best to kill you off right then and there. We found a great tree right away, but the 5/8 just couldn't admit that the tree was almost-but-not-quite the perfect Christmas tree. So we walked around that field of trees for what seemed like hours. Time always seems to last longer when you're freezing your...uh...nose off. I started to remember one year up in the Last Frontier when My 2 Cents and I went out and braved the Alaskan winter in an attempt to find a couple of trees for our families. He was sick, and not feeling good at all. I kept telling myself "I've been colder before, and I'll probably be colder at some time later in life." By the way, that almost kind of sort of works. We found what we though would be a pretty nice tree after wading through waist high snow (for again, what seemed like hours). We started to brush the snow away from the base so we could cut it down good and close to the ground. We cleared snow, and cleared snow and cleared more snow. Until we finally realized that what we were wanting to cut down was one huge tree and the part we thought would make a good Christmas tree was only the top 1/3 or so. There was no way that tree was going to fit on the old Cherokee, let alone in either of our places of residences. So, dejected and empty handed we trekked that multitude of miles yards back to the Cherokee, got in the old giant black beast, and headed back to The City. The women folk for some reason didn't seem too surprised that we hadn't cut down the perfect tree, and thought we were fools for not just buying one at the corner gas station.

But, like the snow on Saturday, I'm beginning to drift a bit. We walked around that tree farm until we had looked at pretty much every tree they had. We ended up getting the first one we liked anyway. We could have saved a bunch of body heat by grabbing that one the first time we saw it. The kids enjoyed the time though, and I have to admit, being cold wasn't all that bad. It was still good family fun. We had loaded up Little Sister's MP3 player with Christmas songs, and plugged the old "cd -> cassette" contraption in and sang Christmas carols all the way out there and back.

Christmas Cheer

The kids made a gingerbread house. We never did that when we were kids. But then again, you couldn't simply go down to the store and buy a kit in a box either. One that doesn't require baking. It came with some sort of icing glue stuff to hold it all together. Seeing it makes me want to make a real one though. Maybe next year, I'll have to find a recipe for ginger bread. I remember making ginger bread people once when I was a kid. I asked mom about making a gingerbread house, like in Hansel and Gretel, but she side-stepped the question with something or other and it never came to fruition.

This one the kids did by themselves, no grown up participation (except to crack open the ol' wallet and fork over the $8 for the kit of course). I'm getting photo-happy as it gets closer to the holidays. So I'm treating everyone to another picture. Hope you like it.

FREEZE TURKEY!

We had quite an ice storm this week. Tuesday and Wednesday the kids were out of school. Heck, even work was considering closing the office on Tuesday based on the forecast. Thankfully, while the ice was horrendous, the folks in the public works department did an exceptional job at keep the streets clear and safe. Wednesday night I went out and snapped some pictures. Here is the most impressive. The sleet drops on the lens give it a strange, surreal appearance. I thought I'd share.

A Little About Me

I found this blogthings site, and thought I'd share the results. Just a little bit about me:

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 85% Conservative, 15% Liberal Social Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal Fiscal Issues: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal Ethics: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

Personally, I think they're off a bit on the personal responsibility thing. I'm all about personal responsibility. My basic premise is, 'if it happened to you, it is your fault.'

Second best Christmas 'toon

The first best Christmas cartoon, as I opined last year, is "A Charlie Brown Christmas". That 1/2 hour show pretty much covers the entire gamut.Charlie Brown being depressed because of the over-commercialization of Christmas - makes you wonder how he would feel now that Christmas trees are becoming "Holiday" trees, and the terms "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Christmas" are being replaced with "Happy Holidays". But my favorite part of the show is Linus' speech in response to Charlie Brown yelling "But what is it all about", Linus dons his shepherd's headdress and replies:

And there were in the same country shepherds, abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them! And they were sore afraid ... And the angel said unto them, "Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all my people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ, the Lord."

"And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger." And suddenly, there was with the angel a multitude of the Heavenly Host praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the Highest, and on Earth peace, and good will toward men.

That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

I can't help it. It just touches me every time the show comes to that scene.

But on a lighter note, another terrific animated Christmas show is "Santa Vs The Snowman". With Jonathan Winters as Santa, this CGI animated short film was originally created in 3D for IMAX distribution. It is currently available on DVD (has both regular and 3D version on the DVD). The creators are DNA productions - some of you might be familiar with them, they also do Jimmy Neutron on Nickelodeon.

Some great scenes in this show. My favorite being where Santa parks his sleigh outside some little girls house, and clicks the keyfob in his hand and the sleigh gives of that little "beep boop" sound car alarms make when they are activated. I don't know why that cracks me up, but it just does. Also, for the Star Wars fans out there, a great battle scene where the Snowman has AT-AT style igloo walkers as he and his minions attack Santa's workshop.

I know it sounds kinda violent, but in reality it isn't. The whole thing is handled in such a way that there is no way it could be scary or bothering even to little ones. It is just too funny. And, of course, in the end Santa and the Snowman end up best friends.

Thanksgiving with the in-laws

Most of you who know me have heard me state that I don't like the 5/8's in-laws much more than I like my own in-laws. Family can be such a pain in the backside. Usually for Thanksgiving we head to my brother's house where his anal-retentive wife keeps a perfectly clean Mrs. Cleaver style house. Never a spec of dirt anywhere. There is a place for everything and everything is in it's place. The worst I have ever seen her house is after dinner at Thanksgiving where the table is strewn with black Friday ads from the day's newspaper and the grown ups look through the ads and pass them around, and look through them again. The women mapping their black Friday attack vectors to hit the best stores with the best deals at the most opportune times. Planning and scheming with one another, "you pick that up for me at this store, and I'll pick this up for you at that store."

This year we made the grueling 30 mile trek to Lawrence to spend Thanksgiving with the in-laws (mine, not hers). Her parents bought one of those half in the ground houses on a five acre lot a couple of years ago, and we seem to be spending much more time there now than I had ever wanted to. Before they lived in a decent sized house, but her ol' man is somewhat of a packrat. Well, somewhat is really an understatement. He is a packrat extrordinaire. Some people drink, other's smoke dope, some look at pictures of naked ladies (or men) on the Internet (or in magazines). But the FiL's true calling is packratism. This guy can save the most mundane things which he can find a reason for them to be nigh invaluable. When they had moved from their old house to their new one, we would go over on the weekends to help clean up out the old house. There were several large plastic trash cans full of empty oil bottles - just to give you an idea what this guy is like.

So we made the trip to Lawrence. The kids (of course) are fighting and bickering the whole way there. I'm never excited about going to Lawrence. The FiL is one of those guys who drinks some sort of whey protein drink for breakfast. It's green and stinks like I don't know what. He is always going on about some health thing. When the 5/8 was a kid, it was milk. They couldn't drink milk because it had some cancer causing enzyme or some such goofiness. Now it is turkey. It is ok to eat turkey once in a while, but folks shouldn't have turkey sandwiches because if they eat turkey all the time it will kill them.

One of the things that I missed by going to Lawrence - and I didn't know I would miss it, I'd never even thought about it before - was sitting at an actual table as a family and sharing the Thanksgiving meal. At the in-laws everyone sits in the living room eating off TV trays. I suppose it works for them, and that is fine if it does, who am I to judge really. But it just doesn't feel like Thanksgiving when everyone is eating from paper plates and off TV trays scattered about the house.

With my family, there is this sense of camaraderie that just doesn't seem to exist in the 5/8's family. There isn't a lot of joking around going on. Most of the conversation centers around what we should be eating to live to be 100 (as if I would want to live that long), as well as what sham good investments to make, and of course, no trip to Lawrence would be complete without a long, and sleep inducing trip through the FiL's biblical insights. He swears he is going to write a book about his thoughts on the Bible and Christianity. And that is admiral I suppose, and of course since he is family I would buy one, and perhaps even start to read it. But I'm I'll know how it ends and pretty much what it says after listening to the man for the past 20 years.

Movie Thoughts: Where the Red Fern Grows

We watched Where the Red Fern Grows. I put it on our list at Blockbuster.com because it sounded like a good family movie. The kind that are made from old books written for teens and almost-teens, and I was right. The story centers around a young boy in the Oklahoma Ozarks who desperately wants a coon-hunting dog. He works doing odd jobs and somehow, during the depression, manages to scrape together the $50 to get a pair of hounds. He spends years training them and of course they become the best coon-hunting dogs in the area.

One of the things that surprised me was that Dabny Coleman actually played a likeable character. I can't remember the last time I saw Coleman in a role where you actually liked his character. The story was entirely predictable for those of us who have seen 100s of these types of movies in our collective lifetimes. The thing was, it wasn't predictable for the kids, and that is the important part. Even No. 2 Son who barely sat through Transformers, was nigh glued to the story and interested in what was going to happen next.

Just Read: Cell by Stephen King

  I'm a pretty big Stephen King fan. I can't say I'm a huge fan. I haven't read all his books. I haven't read any of the Bachman books, so maybe I'm just a fan, and not even a big fan really. My favorites from him are The Stand and The Dark Tower series. I'll have to admit the final Dark Tower book kind of fizzled though. It didn't seem like his heart was in it. Almost as if he wrote it just to get it out of the way, to be finished with Roland and Jake and Detta and the rest.

The Stand, for the uninitiated, is an end of the world story. An extremely dangerous, genetically engineered super flu virus (nicknamed "Captain Tripps") is accidentally released from a government facility and eliminates 2/3 of the world's population. Coming into the midst of this is Randall Flagg. Flagg is, I believe, one of the greatest, and most evil villains since Darth Vader.

Cell is another try by King at an end of the world story - with zombie types thrown in for good measure. But it falls far, far short of The Stand. The story centers around Clay Riddell who is a graphic artist and things are just looking up for him. He sold his graphic novel "Dark Wanderer" and was about to be rolling in the dough. Well, maybe not rolling, but at least he could provide a better life for his wife and child. That same day, everyone who had a cell phone went completely bonkers. Some sort of pulse was transmitted essentially wiping out their minds, leaving only the most basic emotions. Riddell is in Boston, and his wife and kid are up in Maine (natch!). The story follows Riddell and a few others picked up along the way, on his quest to find his wife and son, while trying to avoid becoming food for the zombie "phoners".

King's usual character development is non-existent. While the book does suck you in, it just doesn't, I don't know, doesn't 'get you there.' I don't know how else to explain it. It is almost like King didn't even really write this book. It reads like a book that is written in the style of King, as an homage to him, but not by him.

It is a good story though. Maybe he was channeling Bachman, and this is the way he wrote the Bachman books (as I said, I've never read any of them - just not that much of a sci-fi fanatic where books are concerned). Or a graphic novel. It would have made a great graphic novel. Maybe King should have dropped a line to Frank Miller, or Klaus Jansen or John Byrne and had them illustrate it. I probably would have enjoyed it more if he'd done that.

The slo-mo effect

It was one of those bright blue Sunday afternoons that Kansans know only come with a bite of chill in the air. The usually warm-day haze of humidity and gunk in the air, that can be seen as a rather brown haze on the horizon was gone. Replaced with a bright, glowing yellow sun, and a blue sky that could be used to perfectly describe the color sky-blue. There was a bit of chill in the air, but not quite enough to see your breath, or even for a jacket.

The keys tumbled in the air. The bright sun shooting little twinkles on the metal as they turned end-over-end. Things seemed to be moving in slow motion (slo-mo as they say in the 'biz'). I have experienced the slo-mo effects only a couple of times in my life, and I can pretty much remember them.

The first time I was cognizant of it was in grade school, during a pick-up neighborhood baseball game. The batter hit the ball and I was playing shortstop I think. The ball sailed up and up and was coming right for me. I jumped with all my strength. It felt like I was ten feet in the air, making a dramatic catch that even Cookie Rojas would envy. Time slowed to a crawl, my mind was working at regular speed, but my actions, and everyone's actions were in slo-mo. The ball hit my glove and everything sped up to normal speed again. I caught the ball, the batter (Kenny, maybe?) was out. I'm certain the play was not nearly as dramatic as I had imagined it being. Just as sure of that, as I am that I probably only jumped about 6 inches off the ground (maybe 10, but I was a really fat kid, and I'm not sure I could have jumped 10 inches).

As the slo-mo effect came into being, the keys were tumbling and turning through the air, No. 1 Son was half visible behind the van. He was walking around behind to get to the driver's side as I was heading to the passenger door. His head was cocked slightly to the side in that way that he does, a sly smile on his face was made crooked by the one eye that was squinting in the bright sun. Calmly, and with purpose and confidence, he raised his hand and allowed the keys to hit his palm as he closed his fingers around them. The slo-mo effect subsided just as he gave me a knowing wink, his face full of pride and expectation.

I remember what it was like. To be a teenager, to still be new enough at driving that getting to do so is a treat. A treat that you feel should be cherished because who knows when it will come again. It is all at the discretion of the parents as to whether a teen with a learner's permit will get to drive. I think I know exactly how he felt at that moment.

"There is no shame in being second best"

For quite some time now No. 2 Son has been talking about his great desire to be a Navy Seal. I don't know what it is that created this desire in him, but I'm not going to do anything to dispel that either.

As the regular readers know, No. 1 Son is in the Marine Jr. ROTC program at his high school. The instructor for that program is CWO Gunner. Awhile back No. 2 Son and Gunner were discussing things, and the discussion turned to the military where No. 2 Son did not hesitate to relate his desire to be a Navy Seal. Gunner asks why he would want to be a Seal, and No. 2 Son responded that while he knows the Marines are tough, the Seals go in, get the job done, and get out without anyone knowing they were there. This didn't seem to phase Gunner in the least (very little does) as Gunner responded "Well, that's ok. There is no shame in being second best if that is what you want."

This conversation was brought to memory yesterday as we were watching "The Unit". I have said before, and I still believe, that this television program is the single best hour long commercial for the US Army ever developed. The plot was the team was extracting a kidnapped journalist from Lebanon. Things didn't go according to plan and their extraction helicopter was shot down, and one of the team was badly wounded in a gunfight so they could not get to the secondary extraction point. They tended the wounded soldier and put a marker on the top of a building hoping the satellites could see it and send help.

At the end of the show, help arrived in the form of the US Marines. This sent No. 1 Son into hysterics as he found great joy that the US Marines had to be sent in to rescue the US Army Special Ops team. I'm certain that at school today, he is telling all of his MJROTC comrades about it.

I been tagged!

Military Mom has tagged me with the "Show your desktop" meme. So here is mine:

The picture is one I took during the last full lunar eclipse we had back in August or July or sometime around then.

Here are the meme rules/instructions:

My Desktop Free View Instructions:
A. Upon receiving this tag, immediately perform a screen capture of your desktop. It is best that no icons be deleted before the screen capture so as to add to the element of fun. You can do a screen capture by:
[1] Going to your desktop and pressing the Print Scrn key (located on the right side of the F12 key).
[2] Open a graphics program (like Picture Manager, Paint, or Photoshop) and do a Paste CTRL + V).
[3] If you wish, you can “edit” the image, before saving it.
B. Post the picture in your blog. You can also give a short explanation on the look of your desktop just below it if you want. You can explain why you preferred such look or why is it full of icons. Things like that.
C. Tag five of your friends and ask them to give you a Free View of their desktop as well

Now I'm supposed to tag five other folks. I don't know that many, so I'll tag the following:

Count
SoHos
Skipper
Christy
Captain D's Mom

Holy Frijoles!

I like to browse the blogs over at ZDNet, and I ran across this entry by Robin Harris.

He reports that Professor Guarav Khanna at the University of Massachusetts has clustered 8 Sony Playstation 3s (donated by Sony) to create one supercomputer. Researching his black holes and quantum cosmology cost him $5,000 in grant money on a conventional supercomputer, but for way less than that, one can run whatever complex computations they desire with the supercomputer created out of PS3s.

Picture stolen from ZDNet, please don't sue me!

Awesome!

Sometimes you can't catch a break

Sometimes it is just too difficult to get anything of worth accomplished. Like a blog post even. I sit down, fire up LiveWriter, and begin typing. Then comes commotion from the kitchen. So I have to get up, walk across the house, and knock some kids upside the head. While in the kitchen I notice dishes in the sink so I figure I might as well put those in the dishwasher while I'm there. Because, you know, nobody else in the whole danged house can put a dish in the dishwasher.

Then I sit back down and write maybe two or three more words, and the 5/8 brings a basket of clothes from the dryer. I stop again and get up and walk across the house to help fold the clothes. By the time that is finished, the kids are at it again, and I have to take the time to go out back and knock them upside the head again. When I get back inside, I notice yet more dirty glasses in the sink. After loading those in the dishwasher, I sit back town, and type another couple of words.

About 1 1/2 paragraphs into a post is normally when one of the 'rents calls with some task they just can't seem to get accomplished by themselves. Difficult things to be sure, things like changing a light bulb, or moving some 2x4s from one shed to another. So I stop again, and drive on over to the 'rents house and get done whatever dangerous and difficult task they just had to have done 'right darned now.' When I get back I once again notice more dishes in the sink. After cleaning out the sink for what seems like the 23rd time in the last three hours, I can sit back down at the computer and crank out a couple more lines of a post.

Of course, about two more lines grace the electric glow of the monitor before the 5/8 comes back up from the basement with more dry clothes which require folding, and the kids are requiring more head-knocking, and there are still dirty dishes in the sink. All of this going on, and when I ask No. 1 Son to do something I get the response "Sheesh, can't I just get one day for some 'me' time?" All I can do is laugh, because the other thing that goes through my head at those words is a felony.

Movie Thoughts: Transformers

I have to admit, Transformers sounded like it could be a cool movie, but I wasn't so sure it would be. Like Godzilla, and some other gigantic movies before it, the probability was there to just make a complete dud. Way heavy on the special effects, and pretty much nothing else.

While I have never been a huge Transformers fan, in fact, you could say - with a great degree of accuracy - that I didn't really care about the show in the least.

The movie was pretty much what I expected. Heavy on the special effects, light on just about every other aspect of movie making. The plot was typical, two giant races of robots decide earth is a good place to make war on one another. There is, of course, a 'good' race and a 'bad' race. The bad race (decepticons - natch!) want to destroy all humans and re-shape earth to be their new home world, which was destroyed during the first good-guy/bad-guy war. The good guys (autobots - what kind of name is that anyway?) want to save the humans, and co-exist (but in secret - disguised as...autos!) in secret.

At any rate, the movie was good on action scenes, and the special effects were awesome! If you are looking for substance, run, run as fast as you can. But if you are a big fan of awesome CGI and like lots of explosions and the like, it definitely beats Godzilla hands down.

Indy 4

After what seems like nearly a lifetime (actually, more than a lifetime in relation to my kids) that man of adventure is making his return to the silver screen.

According to filmspot.com, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is in production for a 2008 release. According to wikipedia, the film is set in 1957, and instead of going up against the Nazis Dr. Jones faces off against the communists of the "Evil Empire."

They say they are keeping the CGI to a minimum. I don't know who well that will work with Harrison Ford being somewhere around 65 years old, but two of the last three movies were exceptional. And I did like watching the "Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" back when Lucas was making those.

Of course, this could always be like the "Star Trek franchise where most fans believe in the 'odd numbered film curse'. That is, all of the odd numbered Star Trek films stink. Perhaps, it is reversed with Indiana Jones, and all of the even numbered films will stink. Only time will tell.

Baby you can drive my car

No. 1 Son turned 15 the other day. We haven't had a party for him yet. He says he doesn't really want a party, just wants to go bowling with a couple of friends. I can't pretend to understand that. Bowling? It isn't like we are some die-hard bowling family or anything. Sure, back in the day the 5/8 and I were on a bowling team in Olathe, back when No. 1 Son was just fresh from the cabbage patch. Maybe he has some sort of fond memories of bowling alleys from way back then. Who knows.

About 10 years ago his grandmother won a Dodge Neon from the newspaper over in Lawrence. Some contest she entered. I hadn't known anyone who won a car in real life, so that was kind of exciting. Well, against my objections, she gave No. 1 Son that Dodge Neon for his birthday. It only has about 67K miles on it, and it needs at least a battery. But we have a year to fix it before he can really drive it. I didn't think he needed a car. My plan was always to get another vehicle for myself next year and give him the Insight.

My thinking was that the Insight is a perfect car for a kid. If it isn't driven conservatively, the batteries become drained and you find yourself trying to drive a car on the anemic 3 cylinder engine. Add to that it is so small and cramped, there is absolutely positively no room for any funny business in that little car. Sure, we don't have any drive-ins around anymore, but that doesn't mean that kids won't be kids. And this was supposed to be just one more extra little blanket of protection against hormones. Now he has a roomy car with a full back seat (it is a 4 door)!

On the upside, now I can think about getting a more suitable vehicle sooner, rather than later.

Movie thoughts: Hollywoodland

There is a game we used to play. Well, it isn't a game really, it's more of a...I don't know what to call it. It went like this, we would sit around and offer suggestions for which actor would be best for playing the role of characters in movies. Movies about books, or re-makes of old TV shows, or comics or whatever.

Anyway, the one character I have had the most difficulty with is Mike Hammer. Stacy Keatch was excellent as Hammer on the television shows he did, but he is way too old now.

Mike is your quintessential hard-boiled private eye straight from the pulp dime novels and film noir genre that brought us the likes of Phillip Marlow and Sam Spade. Marlow and Spade were earlier of course, and were translated into films near the height of the film noir genre, both benefiting from the abilities of Humphrey Bogart.

But Mike Hammer never got a good shot at the silver screen. The best Hammer flick I have witnessed to date is "Kiss Me, Deadly" starring Ralph Meeker and a very young, and not to shabby lookin' Cloris Leachman.

Anyway, what I was getting at in the beginning of this whole thing is that I have found a person who could do a justice to the role of Mike Hammer. This actor is one that I would never have thought of on my own in a million years. In fact, I couldn't say that I ever really thought him much of an actor anyway. That guy, is Ben Affleck. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "Ben Affleck, you mean that guy from Gigli? That guy from Sum of All Fears? That guy who was almost married to J-Lo? WTF????"

I know, I know, I couldn't believe it either. Not only has ne not really 'looked' the part, he's, I mean come on, he's Ben Affleck for crying out loud. However, I did sit down last night at watched "Hollywoodland". Quick synopsis of the film, George Reeves was a somewhat struggling actor. Had a fairly minor part in Gone With the Wind, and a Saturday morning kiddie show as Sir Galahad. He needed the money, so he auditioned for, and was awarded, the part of Superman on the old TV series.

After several years on the show he is hopelessly typecast as Superman, when the show is canceled, he still cannot find work. Eventually, he ends up on his bed with a bullet hole in his head. The question is, was it suicide as ruled by the police, or murder? Reeves mother hires Louis Simo (played by Adrian Brody), a fairly down on his luck PI to investigate.

Affleck plays Reeves, and did it with so much more talent than anything I have seen him in previous to this. The movie is not a pow-pow bang-bang shoot 'em up action film, but neither is it boring. It moves along slowly and methodically, and uses flashbacks to portray periods on Reeve's life. The flashback sequences are well done and only serve to move the story forward.

I am thoroughly surprised this movie was not nominated for an Oscar. Brody, Affleck and especially Diane Lane (who played Reeve's "sugar momma") deserve more recognition than they received. Well worth a watch.

Holy COW!!!

Man, I thought I really needed a Microsoft Surface device, but then I ran across this little puppy. This is what I really, absolutely, positively NEED!




I found it over at Popular Mechanics.

Donations are being accepted!

Is it real or memorex?

I was surfing this evening when I came across this video:

glumbert - Genius 3-year-old finger painter

At first I was completely floored and super impressed with this kid. But then I started thinking, is this for real? And I started looking at the video again, but with more cynicism (I know, I know, those of you who know me can't believe I looked at it without cynicism the first time - hard to believe).

Personally? It think it is fake. You never really see the kid painting the actual picture. You see close ups of a hand painting, you see far away shots of the kid putting his fingers in the bowls, but you never actually have a shot where you see the kid applying paint to the actual painting. There are two shots where it looks kind of convincing. One is where the kid is getting paint on his fingers, and then putting them on some paper, but all you can see of the paper is the corner. No one can see what is on the rest of it. The other shot is at the end where it looks like he is putting the finishing touches on the painting, but then he picks the painting up and it is dry.

At the end, watch the end, when he picks up the painting, notice anything missing? Yeah, me too, his shirt is way too clean, and not one drop of paint can be seen on the table. RRRRIIIIIGGGHHHHTTT

14 years in the making

A little over 14 years ago, the 5/8 and I sat in line for several hours attempting to obtain tickets to the Garth Brooks concert. We were at the Jones Store Ticketmaster outlet. Several things about that ordeal ticked me off. One, is that this outlet didn't start selling tickets until almost 20 minutes after the official start time. Second, the bloke in front of my bought up the last two tickets.

Well, we get another chance to see him in concert. Garth is coming to Kansas City, and the radio station in Kansas City is billing it as 'one city show'. That is, he is not doing a whole tour, just playing Kansas City.

This time around, we had better luck. And we didn't stand in line, and we didn't have to deal with smelly, rude people while not standing in line. This time we went online to the Ticketmaster website and got tickets to see Garth Brooks show in Kansas City next month. The radio on Friday reported that Garth had said he would make tickets available as long as people were buying them. I thought this was a kind of bogus line. I mean, seriously, the Sprint center only holds so many people.

But as we were frantically trying to obtain the tickets - three of us; myself, the 5/8 and No. 1 Son all hitting the Ticketmaster website over and over trying to obtain the tickets, we got a message the original 14 Nov show was sold out, but another show date, 12 Nov, became available. We were able to snag tickets to that one. The last I looked at the Ticketmaster site, there were 9 dates for Garth in the Sprint Arena in Kansas City. I guess he was true to his word.

Along with this, I was impressed with the price at $27/ticket, they were extremely affordable. We paid $60-something a ticket to see Shania Twain about three years ago. And that $27 is for all seats, they all carry the same price. Which is way cool. And Ticketmaster stated the online and phone sales were limited to folks in Kansas, Missouri, SE Nebraska and SW Iowa, based on the credit card billing address. Which was also way cool. This would keep the ticket bots from buying up all the tickets like that Hannah Montana fiasco.

I could have made it all up.

This whole 30 days of posts thing doesn't seem to be going over very well. Here is it, 4 days since my last post, and I don't have any valid reasons for not posting. Sometimes, you just have nothing to say, and sometimes you have plenty to say, you just don't have the right words to say it. Then again, sometimes you might put the whole thing at the bottom of the list of things to get done. Placing a lower importance on it than, say, pressing the "Stumble Upon" button in the browser tool bar. Sometimes, you just want to kind of vegetate and do mostly nothing, especially something that will require you to think, and possibly express some kind of idea, or thought, or tell a story.

But who knows really, mostly I think sometimes things just - are; and you are just too damned apathetic to give a rat's hind end about much of anything. So here it is, yet another Sunday, and I haven't posted anything since Thursday and I'm thinking to myself 'why didn't I just take five minutes and put something, anything up?' and there is no answer. Just nothing. But I'm making the effort anyway. As this whole experiment goes on, it just seems like what there is to write about doesn't seem all that interesting. And if it isn't interesting to me, I have to wonder how interesting it is to anyone else. I'm not going to give up on it though. I missed a few days, but there were some days that I posted multiple times, so that should count for some extra credit at least.

But then again, I could have just made the whole thing up.

Bionic Woman Redux

After two episodes, I'm still trying to get past the vast and sweeping changes to the Bionic Woman mythos that are created in the re-imagining of the show. About the only things that are retained from the original show are; the bionic woman's name is Jaime Sommers, and she has robotic parts. Apart from that, almost nothing is retained.

There is no Oscar Goldman. There is no government spy agency called OSI. There is no Dr. Rudy Wells who pioneered the bionics project. And there is a bionic woman 1.0 - who is 1/2 crazy - running around mucking things up.

Instead of the OSI, Jaime works for some super-secret private firm who are trying to keep the world from being destroyed, and she cost $50 million (instead of $5 million in the original). I guess it would have to be a private agency to get all those bionic parts (two legs, 1 arm, 1 ear and 1 eye - the eye is another deviation from the original) for only $50 million. I'm quite certain if it was a government project, it would have run closer to $5 billion. In a government program, she probably could have gotten a bionic little toe for $50 million.

I'm going to give it some more time. At least with Battlestar Galactica they mostly kept the familiar names around. With this, the only name they kept was Jaime Sommers. But I'm still waiting for Lindsey Wagner to do a guest appearance - I'm almost certain that is in the works.

Blogs in Space

Okay, this is just kind of cool. Not that I really think for a second that my 'blog is headed to space, but hey, it's free, and they have nifty buttons and graphics you can put on your blog to proclaim that your blog is being transmitted up to where the Enterprise can receive it in a couple of centuries.

But they do carry this disclaimer:

Bloggers who use this site are urged to keep their blogs devoid of any language, comments or content that might offend, taunt or provoke alien life forms in any way. Let's not start an intergalactic war :)

And here are all the different badges/buttons they have:











I haven't quite decided on which one I'm going to use, but I'm leaning towards the first one.

Lost teaser on this week's Chuck

I had to post something about this, so I get bonus points for two posts
in one day for my 30 Days of Posts experiment. For those Lost fans out
there, there was a Lost teaser in tonight's episode. Did you catch it?

The scene was when Chuck was being shown the images by the doctor. An
image of an airplane appeared on the screen, and Chuck says "Oceanic
flight 815 was shot down by [unintelligible] experimenting with
underground warfare". This is from memory, so it might not be 100%
accurate, but both myself and the 5/8 caught it!

I know, two different networks, but I will swear on a stack of bibles that this is what he said.


Technorati Tags: Television, Chuck, Lost, ABC, CBS, Oceanic 815

Leaving Las Vegas

One of my favorite shows the last few years has been "Las Vegas" on NBC. I started watching it because of James Caan. Since "Rollerball"(the original, not the crappy remake) I will pretty much watch anything James Caan is in.

Caan's character was great. Ex-CIA spook guy now running a Casino in Las Vegas. Knows all the old-timer mob guys, and how to take care of business 'off the books'. Last season (I believe it was) Caan's character left for awhile. The show was somewhat draggy then. Without Caan, it just wasn't going to fly. I was about ready to give up on it when he came back.

In this season's opener, he left for good. And I'm pretty sure it is for good this time. But I have faith that they can do the same great show without him this time. Last time, when Caan left, there was nobody to fill his shoes. All that was left was the young eye-candy characters - don't get me wrong, the eye-candy is nice. This time though, they have brought in a new character, and new old salt kind of guy. A Wyoming rancher who simply 'wrote a check for $247 million to pay off the casino's back taxes. The character is portrayed by Tom Selleck.

Twenty years ago, Selleck was the bomb as "Magnum, P.I." but his after Magnum career has somewhat stifled. He did some crappy movies and some guest shots on other TV shows. If the western genre was better received, he would have had some good hits with westerns. He seems to just kind of slide into the cowboy role, and this character acts exactly how you might expect a cowboy to act. When an oncologist from Kansas City is caught cheating at black jack, instead of sending the guy to jail, Selleck himself deals cards to the fellow and makes the proposition "You stole over $1 million of my money. Now, I believe sometimes people make mistakes. So what we're going to do is play blackjack until I win all my money back, every cent, then you go back to Kansas City and save some lives." (ok, it was paraphrase, my memory isn't that good, but you get the drift).

I think Las Vegas will last without Caan just fine. Unfortunately, I don't think "Criminal Minds" will last without Mandy Patinkin. Another show I started watching for the actor, Ever since "Princess Bride" I have watched most things Patinkin has done. Sadly, I missed the whole "Dead Like Me" era of his career, but I'm sure that somehow I'll get over it.

Holy Cow! Look at all those reference links. You'd think I'm getting paid for that many links but alas, I don't.

Have a great rest-of-your-Monday!

The weekend is winding down. I'm just waiting for some pants to dry so I have something to wear to work tomorrow. The kids and the 5/8 are in bed and the house seems eerily quiet except for the wood-cutting sounds of the dog snoring in the next room. Every now and again I can hear someone sneaking around upstairs, the floors in this old house creak something awful - a burglar would never make it around the house without being heard.

The weekend was mostly uneventful. Friday night was great, no casino runs, no picking kids up at the football game. Just me, my mates, and several uninterrupted hours of killing bad guys in Raven Shield. Some members from the Strike clan showed up on our server. Back before we had our own server, the Strike clan server was pretty much our home away from home. There were times though, that the server would get full and they would kick someone off to allow one of their own members to play.

It was then that we noticed they usually kicked people who weren't "wearing tags" to make room. Wearing tags is a term referring to people who are not in an organized group or clan. We decided to devise a tag of our own, so we could appear to be a clan, and save us from getting booted. Originally our clan symbol was "(.)(.)playername". But we changed that about eight or nine months ago as our kids were getting old enough to play with us. We just felt it was not appropriate for 12 and 14 year olds to have a symbol representing womens' breasts as their tag. So we changed it to "[FGN]playername".

The strike server is gone now. They have mostly moved onto newer games. We haven't. Many of our players are in the military, and simply cannot afford to upgrade or purchase new computers that would allow them to run the newer games. Raven Shield is 5 years old. And there are enough after-market maps around to keep it lively. Add to that, in multi-player mode the maps are never really the same because you are playing with other live people, and people very seldom do the same thing over and over again. The ones that do don't last long in the round because others playing will figure out their pattern and lay waste to them.

Even though we had our collective rumps handed to us by the strike clan, it was a great deal of fun playing with them again. You would think that after playing the same game for five years we would be better at it by now, but sadly that is just not the case, we still stink.

Machinima

Machine + Cinema = Machinima

Machinima is a fairly new artform which utilizes graphics engines from games, and creates short (3 - 7 minute) movies. You record the game, and then go back and add voice-overs, background noise/music or whatever, then upload it to the YouTube.

I have obtained a passive interest in this since my kids turned me on to "Red vs. Blue" via YouTube. Red vs Blue are a series of Machinima shorts created in the Halo game. They do contain some bad language, so I wouldn't recommend that any young kids be allowed to watch them. I would rate them along the lines of PG-13 movies.



The above is episode 1. You pretty much have to start at the beginning. And even if you are not a Halo fan (I have played it only once or twice myself), you should still find them enjoyable. It would be great to get all of these on a DVD as one continuous episode.

It doesn't always pay to be the smart one

I got a call from my brother yesterday. Seems his computer has started giving him a message from Norton Anti-Virus saying he has a "Trojan.Vundo" residing in "C:\Windows\System32\mljigda.dll". Of course, the virus (according to Norton) is over 2 years old, so I suppose this is the reason Norton can't get rid of it. Their website says to download their "FixVundo.exe" file to fix it. I tried to talk him through it on the phone, first by asking him to disconnect his computer from the internet.

Him: "How do I do that?"
Me: "Well, just unplug it from the cable modem."
Him: "How do I do that?"
Me: "Well, you could just unplug the cable modem from the wall."
Him: "What the hell is a cable modem?"

That is when it occurred to me that the only thing he ever does on the computer I think is read his email and do his fantasy sports stuff, and when I knew this was not going to be solved over the phone. He was supposed to bring me his box on Friday, but showed up Wednesday night with it instead. Tonight I plugged it all in, booted into safe mode, and ran the FixVundo app. Nothing. The application said it could not find Vundo virus on the machine. Have I mentioned how much I hate Norton? Personally, I use AVS and have had zero problems with it other than having to manually start the email scanner after every other update. And it is FREE! And it took over two hours to search his machine.

After that, I rebooted into regular windows mode and went to install Ad-Aware (I love ad aware for malware detection). And sure enough, the stupid "you have a virus I can't fix" message comes up, constantly. Click to close it down it alternates messages from "Unable to repair file" to "Access to the file was denied." So I figured I would run the FixVundo in regular mode (completely disconnected from any network, BTW). I start running it, and about 2 minutes into it, I get some debug messages saying the FixVundo is trying to improperly load a C++ library.

Fracking NORTON! I HATE YOU GUYS!!!!

I click through those, and the thing is still running so I'm simultaneously running AdAware (probably not a good idea, but doing it anyway). I'm heading to bed and will just have to see what pops up in the morning.

Have I mentioned how much I dislike the over-priced, bloated resource hog that is Norton Anti-Virus?

AAAAARRRRGGGHHH!!!!

*** 28 September, 2007 - Updated ***
Ok, just to show you that I am not unreasonable in my dislike of Norton Anti-Virus, here is an image from my brother's machine.

Now, please note the bright red box which says "Norton AntiVirus has detected a virus on your computer." You see that? Yeah, that came up just about 30 seconds after the box that said "Trojan.Vundo has not been found on your computer."

Why math is important.

We all did it. Well, the 'normal' ones anyway. All through Jr. High (that's Middle School for you younguns) and High School. We complained incessantly about math. Why do I need math? When am I ever going to use math? Why do I need to know how to divide fractions? And on and on with the whole "I don't need math" rants.

Never mind that math is so basically and utterly important in every day life. Never mind that you use math constantly, without even thinking about it. To figure out how hard you have to stomp on the brake pedal at your current speed so you don't hit the lady crossing the street with a baby carriage? Yep, it's math.

But forget all that stuff. You NEED math. It is essential. Because you people in the 7th grade now, in about 30 years your probably going to have kids in the 7th grade. And guess what? They are going to be taking math. And they are going to ask for your help. Do you really want to look stupid to your kids?

Ancient methods of the plumbologists

It is said, whispered really, in the great halls of plumbers, that the ancient practitioners of plumbology had a great and closely guarded secret. It is not discussed openly. Very few will actually admit to believing in the tales. Somewhat like UFO's. Many want to believe, but few will actually admit to believing. It is currently rumored that some scholars of plumbology have stumbled upon something that borders on the miraculous.

After spending centuries chasing the secrets, and spending untold billions of dollars traversing the globe, it is said that a small, but powerful group of elite plumbologists have happened upon ancient writings which reveal the grand secret. That is the secret of hot water. No, not just water heaters, or just heating regular water, but of actually creating hot water from nothing. Just out of thin air so to speak.

This is my belief. I can't help it. I have tried for months to figure out another explanation, but, believe it or not, this one seems most plausible. Let me explain:

Back in February "Bertha", the water boiler at the downtown YMCA was replaced. She was old and tired and had seen her best days long, long pass. It was time to put her out to pasture. But now, this new hot water system boggles the mind and, quite possibly breaks several laws of physics...or psychics...or something like that.

This is what happens; one enters the shower area and turns the shower on to hot water. As expected, a short time elapses and hot water comes pouring from the shower-head. Then a second person enters the show area and turns his shower on to hot water. The first person, having spent more than 4 decades in learning the proper mannerisms of hot water behavior, tenses, ready for his show to get colder as person 2's water gets warmer.

That is where the magic comes into play. It has to be magic, because I can find no other logical explanation; and as Sherlock Holmes once said "We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." The magic is that the when person 2 turns on his hot water, the water for person 1, instead of getting colder, actually get hotter! Amazing! I know, I know, I can hardly imagine it myself, but that is what happens, as true as I'm sitting here typing this out.

How else can this be explained? Water gets hotter the more of it is required? And colder when less hot water is required? It is so backwards. I'm certain that the physics police, or the quantum militia are, even right now, as I type this, hot on the trail of those brave, intrepid plumbologists who have not only discovered, but have had the gumption to actually use this ancient and forbidden wisdom.

Swollen shoulders

A conversation between No. 2 Son and myself at the YMCA one morning:

No. 2 Son: "Dad, I think there is something wrong."
Dad: "Why? What do you mean?"
No. 2 Son: "My shoulders, they're all swollen."
Dad: "Well, do they hurt?"
No. 2 Son: "No, they're just swollen."
Dad: "Let me see." Observes No. 2 Son's shoulders closely. "Dude, they aren't swollen, that's just muscle."
No. 2 Son: "Really? How?"
Dad: "Well, you know how we've been coming to the Y? And how we've been lifting weights? Well, that's what happens when you lift weights; you get muscles."
No. 2 Son: "Cooool."

Missed a day

Well I missed yesterday's post. I apologize for that, and promise to strive to ensure that it never happens again. I had a good reason though - really. Today is Little Sister's birthday, and we had her party yesterday. So my house was full of squealing, giggling 8 and 9 year old girls running up and down the stair and in and out the doors. In short, complete and utter chaos.

Little Sister isn't one of those 'follow the crowd' types of girls. Oh sure, in some she is, but mostly she isn't. Case in point, for her birthday cake, she wanted a cheesecake (girl after daddy's own heart that one). So Friday night we worked together and made a cheesecake. The 5/8 had also purchased a regular cake because she thought there was a possibility that some of the girls might not like cheesecake. I told her she was nuts, that no one in their right mind doesn't like cheesecake. Turn out, I was wrong, there were some girls that didn't like cheesecake. The 5/8 gleefully made a note on the calendar because, you know, it isn't that often that I am wrong.

Lessons Learned

If your house is full of fruit flies, and you simply can't for the life of you figure out where they are coming from; check the kitchen window sills for mangoes you might have placed there - two or three months ago - to ripen.

Oh, and mangoes don't smell when they rot!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Some things never change

Can hardly wait. Monday 25 September is the season premier of Heroes! And just in time too. I wasn't quite certain what I was going to do with my Monday nights now that "Saving Grace" ended its first season. Which, I might add, was a tremendous season. The redneck angel Earl is a hoot to watch. Sure, it is quite dicey at times, and the show, in my opinion, would be just as good without seeing Holly Hunter tied naked to a bed with a happy face drawn on her back and some guy's name drawn across her buttocks in lipstick. But it is what it is.

On the home front, Topeka High is set to lose another football game tonight. Don't get wrong, I love the Trojans, but I am also painfully realistic. No. 1 Son is in the marching band and MJROTC so he has to be there for every home game. I wish I had thought of that back at enrollment when we purchased the $40 activities card. The activities card gets him into all of the home games free, and, by coincidence, being in the band and MJROTC, he gets into all of the home games...free. The MJROTC kids clean up police the stadium after the games and pick up all the trash.

It never fails that when one thing slows down, another jumps in to take its place. For instance, for the past 8 years or so Friday night has been "Dad's game night." A group of friends from across the country get together online and play video games and talk about life, the universe and everything over voice chat. We used to use Roger Wilco, which was a great, tiny free app, but have since switched to Teamspeak, which is another free app, but has a server component to it. A couple of years ago, for some reason, I seemed to become the Teamspeak host. So instead of having to manually start the server every time I rebooted my machine, I wrote a Windows Service to do that for me. Now it is always running. The problem we are running into now is my DSL. For the entire four or five years that I had cable internet I think my IP address changed maybe three times. With DSL it seems to change three times a week. So every Friday, as part of the routine, I send out an email address to the folks with the new IP address.

Crap, did I get off the subject or what? Okay, so I was saying that when one thing slows down, something else jumps in. We have established that for nearly the past decade, Friday night is dad's game night. About a year go, mami started having real problems driving at night, so I agreed to pick papi up at the casino up north on Friday nights and every other Saturday night. Well, that put quite the damper in my Friday game nights because picking papi up isn't as simple as just driving the 30 minutes up there an back. I have to drive up there, and then wait for him to finish up. If I am not in one of those moods where I become disrespectful, this could take up to an hour or more.

For about the last 6 weeks he has not gone up to the casinos. w00t! I get my game nights back! Did I mention No. 1 Son is in the band? And has to attend all of the football and basketball games. Okay for those following along at home, that means that I 1) get to take No. 1 Son to the football/basketball games and 2) pick No. 1 Son up from the football/basketball games. Granted, this is not nearly as time consuming as making the trek up to the casino to collect papi, but nonetheless, it really cramps my style. I mean seriously. Do you realize how hard it is to be really in the zone, wiping out the enemy in Raven Shield, then have to stop to go pick up some danged teenager at the ball game, and then try to re-enter the zone? It is nearly impossible, I telling you.

Pete's Barbers

When I was a kid, my brothers and I would always get our hair cut at Pete's Barber, down on 8th street in downtown Topeka. My father always took us there. Pete's was that kind of quintessential barber shop one thinks of when they think of a barber shop. The kind that Floyd had back in Mayberry. Complete with the spinning red, white and blue barber pole just outside the door.

I don't remember the shop ever being empty. Whenever we went in there was at least one person in the barber chair, and usually two or three older men sitting in chairs along the wall. I don't think they were there to get their hair cut though, just to chew the fat because we always went right after the fellow in the chair was finished.

The first time ever that I saw a woman's breast was at Pete's Barber. Well, not a breast really, it was artwork. Pete had a calendar, and above the months was the picture of a lady wearing some sort of lingerie. My dad motioned for me to look and he lifted a clear film from the lady, the film is what the lingerie was drawn on, and beneath, the lady was pure nakedness. For a twelve year old boy, that was pretty exciting. Sure, it was a small picture, and sure it was clear across the barber shop, but I knew what I was looking at.

Pete had an employee named Don. Don was quite a bit younger than Pete. He had that cool beach boys hair cut and wore turtle necks a lot. Pete is, of course, gone now, but Don is still there. The place is now called Don's Barbers. Except that there is only one Barber. The chairs are looking old and somewhat grimy and the spinning red, white and blue barber pole just outside the door is broken. It was smashed some time ago and I can't think of when. I have taken my kids to Don's to get their haircut a couple of times. That trip was usually followed by a trip to Super Cuts because, to be frank, Don just doesn't seem to be able to cut hair strait. The Beach Boy do and the turtlenecks are a thing of the past. Maybe, like Samson's hair gave him strength, those things gave Don the ability to give a decent hair cut.\

As always, thanks for visiting!

A post a day

Hello, dear reader, I am going to try something new here. An experiment of sorts. I am going to make a commitment to make at least one post a day for the next thirty days. I can't pretend that they will be about me, or my family, or my home town as most of what is on this blog. And I can't pretend that anything I write is going to be worth reading. Of course, I never tried to pretend that in the first place. Some things come out and I think 'wow, that's really good.' But let's face it, most of the stuff - well - most of the stuff would fall into the category of "all most, but not quite, completely horrible."

I don't know what the purpose of this exercise is. I haven't thought it through all that much. I don't even know why I'm doing it. It isn't like I've lost a bet or feel the extreme urge to make a complete ass of myself. It is nothing like that. I was simply setting up the coffee maker for the morning brew, and the idea popped in my head. I don't know where it came from, or even if the idea was meant for me in particular. I suppose it could have just been floating around out there in space and for some unknown reason, I happened to walk into it at just the right angle, and just the right time and it latched on to my mind.

Whatever the reason, I've got it in my head to do, so I will. Be warned though, it isn't like I'm some great purveyor of words or anything like that. I hope that you'll continue to stop by, even if what I am writing over the next thirty days is complete and utter crap. And I hope that, once in a while, you might drop a comment every now and again to let me know what you think.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

What to do with the ball?

I'm not a huge sports fan. I'm not one of those people who sit around all weekend watching every and any types of sports. I can't list off any stats for any particular team or player. Sure, I watch the Chiefs when the chance arises, I watch (or listen to ) the Royals when I can. But honestly? I can't tell you who one pitcher is on the team right now. I'm not certain I could tell you anything about the team except who they are going to play next. That is simple, it is who they usually play - the winners.

But when I was a kid I was baseball crazy. We had Freddie Patek, Cookie Rojas, Amos Otis, George Brett, John Mayberry and the pitcher who was the Mad Hungarian - I can't remember his name, but I remember he had the cooolest mustache - EVER.

I remember when Hank Aaron hit the ball that broke Babe Ruth's record. I had the poster. It was a pretty big poster. There, in the lower left corner was Aaron, he'd just finished his swing, the bat still in his left hand as he looked up at the ball. The ball, on the other hand, was really just kind of a white looking smudge. Whoever made the poster had put a large white circle around the ball in the picture. They had to or else I'm not sure most people would have seen the ball at all. In the lower right corner of the poster, was the home run wall the ball was going to breach. On the back, were the stats. It listed Babe Ruth's stats and Hank Aaron's stats. Of course, my pa, being the quintessential party pooper that he is just HAD to point out to me that Aaron only broke the Babe's record because he played in like 50% more games than Ruth did. Thanks, way to burst the bubble there pops! But that didn't really bother me all that much. I still had my Hank Aaron signature Louisville Slugger bat, and my Hank Aaron signature Rawlings glove.

Unless you have been living in a cave, I'm certain you know that Aaron's home run record has been topped. It was broken by a fellow named Barry Bonds. Again, unless you have been living in a cage, or just possibly don't watch TV, listen to the radio, read a newspaper or surf the 'Net (which, really, means you won't be reading this anyway, so please disregard that last one), you will know there was quite a bit of controversy surrounding Bond's breaking of the record. There is a lot of speculation (probably rightfully so) that Bonds is/was a steroid junkie. That many of his home runs came while he was juiced up. And many believe that Bonds does not deserve the glory if he was junked up.

I came across a website which seeks the question which is, I'm certain, on everyones' lips (no, not 'why am I wasting time reading this') which is "what to do with the record breaking baseball. The ball currently belongs to a Mark Ecko. He claims he purchased the ball to 'democratize' what happens to it. He has a website at http://www.vote756.com/marcecko/ - where he gives visitors the opportunity to vote on one of three ways the ball should be handled.

1. Give it to the Baseball Hall of Fame
2. Brand it with an asterisk, and then give it to the Baseball Hall of Fame
3. Send it into space

The voting ends on 25 September - so if you want a say in what happens, hurry on over. My guess is that the vote will say 'brand it'. But that is just me, I could be wrong. I didn't pay all that much attention when it happened. So I am way out of touch with what the average baseball fan's thoughts are on the subject.

I think, though, that I'm going to vote for the branding. I wish there was a "brand it and send it into space" option, but there isn't.


Technorati Tags: Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Homerun, Steriods, Marc Ecko

Whiners can't see the writing on the wall

I use Microsoft Windows. I have since Windows 3.1. I almost switched to Apple once, but I didn't because I started looking at all of the software I had at the time, and it was going to cost me a fortune. Not only would it have cost more (about 50% more) to buy the Apple machine over the PC, but then I would have to replace all my software.

Okay, gosh, I get to rambling. I was reading an article (Everything you've read about Vista DRM is wrong) over at ZDNet. I am interested me because I currently run Windows Vista Premium. The article deals with the Digital Rights Management (DRM) that Microsoft is using in Vista. It seems that, in order to protect copyrights and what-not, Microsoft wrote some DRM into Vista. Now, I'm no hardware guru, and I don't play one on TV, so some of my things here might be way off base, but I understand the DRM to work as such:
When playing a high definition movie (Blu-Ray or HD DVD), Vista does not allow anything to intercept the video stream from the originating device, to the monitor. This is supposed to help stop people from running out and renting "Pirates of the Caribbean" and making a copy of it using their Vista machine.

There are about 200 comments to that article arguing over whether DRM is legal, whether it is right. How it just screws the end user by not allowing the copying of high definition digital media. Oh, and all the while chastising Microsoft for putting in their software. Most are screaming how everyone should stay away from MS and instead by Apple (at 1.5 times the price) or install Linux (at 1.5 times the average user knowledge). But there is something I believe they are failing to realize.

That is, if the DRM proves to be somewhat successful in combating illegal copying of high definition media, there will come a time in the very near future, where any device which plays this media, and plugs into a computer, will only work if the computer has proper DRM running. That means, to use these devices, Apple and Linux operating systems will also have to run a compatible type of DRM.

It is as inevitable as all color laser printers which embed microdots identifying the make, model and serial number on all pages printed. And as inevitable as commercial photo imaging software like Adobe Photoshop and Corel Draw putting recognition code in their software which prohibits the scanning of currency. Go ahead, try to scan a $20 or $50 bill, see what happens.

At any rate, so many people wasting so much time on an issue that, in a few years will be a non issue. If DRM does not become the norm, someone will crack it and then everyone can patch their Vista machines with the crack and it will not be a bother to anyone any longer.

Oh, and for the record, since February when I installed Vista, I have had nothing but an acceptable experience. I don't find it clunky, I don't find it slow (in fact, it seems faster than XP did) AND it appears to handle sleep and hibernate modes much better than XP ever did.

**(Okay, so this is kind of a bogus post, I mean, it is all true and what-not, but I felt like I should at least put something up).

SHEEEEEEEEP

Over the last week or so we have been extravagantly treating ourselves as a family. We actually went to two movies. That's right, count 'em two... and the movie theater. Okay, sure, they were at the buck-an-a-half theater, but still the theater!

Both movies, while I would not have considered them 'must-see-in-the-theater' type of movies, they were fully enjoyable. First we saw "Shrek: The Third" which was at least as good as the first one. I'm not one for sequels really. Seldom does the sequel hold even a candle to the original. But anyone with a newspaper and enough interest to look up in the movie section realizes there isn't much choice this year except for sequels. If I was going to be forced to watch a sequel, I personally would have chosen Fantastic Four. Since that could easily be in the prestigious 'must-see-in-the-theater' category. Special effects movies usually are. And to boot, it has Jessica Alba in it. But unfortunately, she is invisible (what marketing bozo came up with that one?).

But in the end I was not even a little disappointed in Shrek. As I said, it was every bit as funny as the original, and if you were to play close attention, there are even more 'grown-up' gags that the kids just won't be able to understand. These gags, as before, are subtle background items, so they don't leave the kids wondering what the heck is going on. One of my favorite parts was when they played the beginning screams to Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song." Sadly, however, they didn't play the whole song.

The other movie was "Evan Almighty". Yes, yet another sequel. In my youth we had George Burns, today's kinder have Morgan Freeman. I don't know if you remember the "Oh God!" movies where George Burns played the Great Almighty, but I loved them. We have watched the first and third ones (you remember "Oh God You Devil" don't you - where Burns played both God and the devil?).

I was very, very hesitant to go and see "Evan" because, well, quite frankly, where "Bruce Almighty" was a great flick, how many times can it be funny to give some everyday Joe Schmoe God's power and watch him make an ass of himself and nearly destroy the world? Happily Evan wasn't like that at all. God tells newly elected Senator Evan to build him an ark because "a flood is coming." Steve Carrell who was Evan the news anchor in Bruce, returns. This man is simply funny with every role I have seen him play.

Service

What in the world ever happened to service? I remember when I was just about knee-high to a grasshopper, my dad got us our very first color television. We were, I think, the last family in the free world to have a color TV, and this was no gem. It was in a giant cabinet with a record player on one side, and a radio on the other. In the middle of this monstrosity was the little green screen of the television. Surrounded by that kind of dull goldish-yellow metal. The screen was more round that square, and much more fish bowl than flat.

I remember when the thing would quit working. Not too much worry for us kids, we were usually outside anyway. Heck the colors on that thing were so washed out you might have just as well been watching a light bulb. At any rate, when the thing would go out, papi would call up the television repair man, and he would come over to the house. He would show up in his TV repair man's van, with his gray coveralls and his little metal toolbox and fix the television.

There is a point to this trip down memory lane, I promise. Fast forward t the wonderful year of 2007. I refused to subject myself to the same horrific television viewing experience as papi 'enjoyed.' Nope, I did better. Some years ago my grandmother (rest her soul) was feeling generous and handed out some money to everyone. It was lucky for us, our 27 inch RCA television that we'd be watching and thoroughly enjoying for the past 14 years was starting to get that hourglass figure in the picture tube. It was excuse enough to use some of the money to purchase a new television. We went with a Sony projection TV from Circuit City (back when we still had a Circuit City). And it has served us well for about 5 years now.

Suddenly, it doesn't do so well with the showing of the picture. The reds and blues are off kilter from everything else - or everything else is off-kilter from the blue which is off-kilter from the red - or...well I don't know what is off-kilter, I just know that Saving Grace is not supposed to be a 3D television program, but it looks like one on my TV.

Doing some Googling I find that there is something called an IC something or other that has probably gone kaput and must be replaced, and the convergence re-aligned by a professional. The Sony website says the closest authorized Sony service center is Servi-Tronics over in Lawrence. Being fairly certain all these projection TVs are fairly standard, and probably any competent television repair man should be able to fix it, I start calling local.

Turns out, Topeka has only 2 television repair shops. And get this, neither of them will come to the house to look at, fix or even pick the television up. Oh, the folks from Lawrence will come to the house for an extra $40 but the folks in Topeka won't come to the house at all. I don't have a truck, and I don't have a trailer. Basically, I have zero methods for getting this television to a repair shop. Unless I want to rent a uhaul, which will probably cost more than the $40 I would pay to give my business to the Lawrencians.

It is just too bad that I have to have someone come from a nearby town...a town that is smaller than Topeka, to have my television fixed. That service is such a dirty word these days. That a guy who tries to make a living repairing televisions doesn't even have the sense to think "hey, if I'm going to work on projection televisions, maybe I should offer (for a fee) to at least pick up and drop off these things for the customer."

Maybe the shop in Lawrence has to make house calls to remain a Sony certified repair facility shop thing, and maybe they don't, I don't know. I only know that they will get money from me, and the local guys won't get squat. Except maybe I'll call them and explain that I went with the company from Lawrence because they offer a little thing called "service".

Benefits

I knew when I took the job I now hold with a local company there would be benefits to it beyond the little extra money and the saving of time and money driving to and from Kansas City. I experienced one of those benefits today.

We woke up around 4:30 this morning, and got the kids up and dressed, and headed out to look at the lunar eclipse. A total eclipse of the moon (not the heart - sorry Bonnie). We went to Burnett's Mound because I figured since it is above the city lights, we'd have a better view of it, and I think I was correct in that thinking. After a couple of wrong turns (I hadn't been there since high school), we finally found the parking area, now called "Skyline Park". Surprisingly, we were alone on the Mound. I fully expected several other people to be mingling about. The kids enjoyed seeing the eclipse, and the stars. The weather was very nice, except for the wind that was strong enough to shake the camera as I tried to take long-exposure pictures of the eclipse. Some came out okay, but most are going to need quite a bit of work in the digital darkroom to make them un-fuzzy enough to enjoy.

After witnessing the event, we headed over to the International House of Pancakes and had breakfast. Everyone had a great time, which is surprising since the 5/8 is definitely not a morning person. I was, in fact, surprised that she was willing to get that early and go with us, but I'm grateful that she did. It would not have been the same without her. If I had still worked in Kansas City, we would have been able to view the eclipse, but then would have had to rush home so I could get to work. It simply would not have been anywhere near the same, nor would it have created the lasting memory I believe this morning created in the children. Having the breakfast together, at the IHoP was the kicker that sealed this into one of those 'priceless' MasterCard moments.

This week's movie

It has been a while since I saw a really good, funny movie. One that was truly enjoyable to watch, didn't make anyone in the room uncomfortable, and actually made me laugh at loud.

"Wild Hogs" (image stolen from Amazon - please don't sue me fellas! - thanks) is just such a movie. Although it is rated PG-13, other than some vague homosexual (not homophobic) humor and some fairly mild violence, there really isn't anything in the move that could be objectionable. Extremely tame language, no nudity or almost-nudity. No guys ogling or objectifying women.

I believe this movie is as close to laugh-out-loud funny and wholesome as we are going to get in this day and age. The movie stars Tim Allen, John Travolta, William H. Macy, Martin Lawrence and the always hot (but not as hot as you hun) Marisa Tomei. Allen, Travolta, Macy and Lawrence are four middle aged suburbanites who decide to take a cross-country trip on their Harleys.

As one might imagine, four middle aged suburban professionals riding Harleys across the country can and do find themselves in various predicaments. Some strange, all of them funny. It isn't the Jim Carrey slapstick kind of funny either. Each trial they go through, is something you can actually imagine happening in the real world. For those of you who remember "Easy Rider", Peter Fonda's uncredited cameo towards the end really tugs at the heartstrings (ok, not really, but it was cool). I think it is an unwritten rule now, that any move about bikers, or Harleys in general, has to have at least a cameo by Fonda.

Lessons Learned

Lesson learned this last week. Just because one spends the past three or four weekends helping the in-laws with things that needed to be accomplished at their house, doesn't mean that one's own parents wants and needs go away. No, they just pile up, each one more urgent and important than the last.

The rat of packs

It was a fairly good week here in Topeka. After getting over the fact that I'm old enough to have a kid in high school, the rest of the week went rather smooth. For a change I didn't have to go collect papi from the casino on Saturday, so we watched 300 instead. Wow! What a movie! I suspect the guys will like it for different reasons than the ladies though (admit it ladies, mostly naked muscle bound sweaty men swinging swords and defending liberty - you know you want to see it again :0 ).

Sunday, during the 110+ degree heatwave that Lawrence was experiencing (the temp on the clock at People's bank said it was 112), we worked on the back yard of the 5/8 pa. In the dictionary, right next to the term "pack rat" is his picture. I don't believe this guy has thrown anything away in at least the 20 some odd years they had lived in that house. There were those big trash cans full of odds and ends...mostly odds. Like the one filled with junk mail fliers. He was planning, he says, on recycling them. I suppose sometime in the next 20 or so years.

It was a long, hot day, but the two boys helped considerably, and they were mostly civil during the ordeal. Little Sister, being only 8, was not old enough to help. I'm sure she felt just terrible having to stay with her cousin and gramma and swim the whole day.

Movin' on up

Monday was a more difficult day than I had imagined it would be. Not that I would actually admit that out loud, so if you try to hold me to that statement, I will disavow any knowledge of it.

We took No. 1 Son to the high school for enrollment. My kid is in high school. I find it hard to believe, I mean, I am not that old. It took almost two hours to snake through the lines and fill out much of the same (or so it seems) paperwork that we filled out at the pre-enrollment last spring.

Then we had to pay fees. What? Fees? I expected fees to be paid for grade and middle school - he went to a parochial school, we had to pay for that. But fees for the public school? What the heck is this? Don't I already pay taxes through the nose for this stuff? And now another several hundred dollars? Nothing starting of the school year with the feeling that they are double dipping into your pocket.

We managed to get to the end of the line without my losing my cool though. As we were speaking with the mother of the Marine Junior ROTC Sgt. Major, the 5/8 made some offhand comment about the state of No. 1 Son's room, something to the effect that the residents of Greensburg, Kansas would rather stay in Greensburg than have to deal with his room. That is when one of the ROTC folks happened to be coming by. No. 1 Son is joining the MJRTOC program at the high school. I made the deal that if he did that, he would not have to get up at 5:30 in the morning and go exercise at the YMCA with me every morning.

Anyway, this ROTC fellow (I am not certain if he is a student or instructor) told the 5/8 that he would be happy to come to our house, and help No. 1 Son straighten out his room. And that when completed, he would know how to keep his room clean, and that we would be able to bounce a quarter off his bedsheets. What? You mean his bed would actually get made?!?

That is a very tempting offer, and he was completely serious. Of course, No. 1 Son doesn't want that to happen. So maybe it will be the incentive he needs to get moving on cleaning that pigsty and possibly even making his bed (hey! a dad can dream can't he?).

Mikey's Back

When I was a kid, a movie came out that we considered a true horror film. This film was so scary and created some of the most intense feelings I had ever experienced in a movie theater. My buds and I probably saw that movie six or seven times while it was at the theater. This was before video tapes (for those of you born after 1980, video tapes were a way to watch movies at home which have since been replaced with DVDs - kind of like audio tapes were a way to listen to music which were replaced by Compact Discs which has been replaced by MP3s - and you say the space program gave us nothing but Tang).

That movie was Halloween. Not only did it introduce us teens to Jamie Lee Curtis (grrroowwwwll) but also Michael Myers (not the Austin Powers Mike Myers - the creepy killer Michael Myers). Since that time there have been umpteen sequels to Halloween. I think the last one had Jamie Lee Curtis in it again. But sadly, since the 5/8 birthday is ON Halloween, and she takes great offense at having her birthday associated with death (like it wasn't Halloween before it was her birthday - sheesh), I have never been able to see it.

Be that as it may, Rob Zombie (Grindhouse, The Devil's Rejects) has re-imagined the Halloween the movie story. Take a look:

I have yet to see Grindhouse (but it is on my list at Blockbuster) - but it looks terrific. Personally, I think if anybody can do a remake of Halloween justice, it is Zombie. I just hope he keeps the Capt. Kirk mask.


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Halloween the movie